How did you find yuri and started to like the genre? For me it was through anime. Started around when i was 11 years old, I found after watching some strawberry panic and other yuri related anime that i kinda like girls who are "very" close to each other. I didn't know what yuri was so a year later or 2, i was into manga and there was this "genre categorize filter" in the manga website. It tells the definition of each genre and I knew what shoujo ai and yuri mean. After reading yuri manga i started to like it (my first few include girl friends by Morinaga Milk), but there is so few. Later i found dynasty and was happy with the amount of yuri manga to read but now that i read almost everything, i am still waiting for more to come. Thank you everyone in dynasty scans for translating and other group.

Lucky Star, but it may actually started earlier with Read or Die.

First yuri I saw was probably dotHack; however, I didn't actually get into it that time. It was just more like, HUH?
I only started to like it when I watched Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha lol... even though it's not even officially canon yuri =.='

Hmm... At least four years had passed when I began reading Yuri... Or perhaps Shoujo-Ai. To be honest, I forgot what the first series that I read but when I saw Girlfriends, I was like, "Girl X Girl is perhaps fine as long as I don't get caught."

When I first read a shoujo-ai bit, I was embarrassed but I continued to read it out of curiosity. Then, it continued to Kannazuki no Miko, more Yuri manga (and some H ones), a little Strawberry Panic (i was embarrassed for the girl with red hair 'cause what she's doing is utterly embarrassing), the whole Marimite (too pure so I can't just put on some Yuri-glasses), Fakku, and Dynasty.

Read or Die is awesome! Almost forgot about that...

Check this AMVs: [The first one only had 1:19 till 1:50 in its Yuri scene]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwtOdRKYMZc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOrh5d309GU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqtT7egii3Y

It all started with me bumping into a strawberry panic video on youtube, then got addicted to that. Then bumped into yuri manga videos then one day I googled yuri manga and the word "yuri" and then that led to "girl friends" and "maka-maka" and many others that are now my favorites. After that, I found this glorious place and now this is my new addiction <3.

It's been 3-4 years or something now, but when I first kinda got into anime, I was watching Higurashi on a certain anime site. One day (it was summer) I decided to check the genres page of the site, and saw shoujo-ai. It got me curious and so I decided to watch the highest rated one from the genre.(surprise surprise it was Strawberry panic). It was pretty difficult to watch, it was embarrassing and felt like a guilty pleasure, but I watched it in 2 days. The amount of impact it had on me was pretty ridiculous, I was sad for days when it ended. A few months later I watched Kashimashi, whose pretty sad story affected me heavily,and it got me addicted to the genre. As Aoi Hana and Sasameki Koto got rather unsatisfying anime endings, I got into yuri manga, reading them first, then moving on to the rest. I had emptied Lililicious and was searching for a new source for yuri when I found this site a year and a half ago or so. And thus I have stayed an avid fan of the genre ever since.

Hmm.. I think it started with me reading the Blue Drop series, which led me to Yoshitomi Akihito's more "normal" yuri.

last edited at Sep 2, 2013 9:02PM

I was reading random manga on MangaFox (before I knew better), happened upon Girl Friends without knowing what it was about. Really liked it and read it all straight through. I went on chain reading anything I could find similar to it, leading me to eventually find out what "Yuri" was.

A few months later I graduated and was temporarily unemployed, so I decide to use my excessive free time seeing what this editing/scanlation that I saw in credit pages was all about. Was familiar with Dynasty from reading SK and saw they were recruiting editors, so I joined up with them and edited a slue of manga.

It was around 4 months after I joined that I started working on the reader. I was frustrated with that state of online readers at that time, and decided I could do better. So after ~4 weeks of spending all my free time coding up the reader, it was released to the wild. It took off and was way more popular than I ever thought it would be.

Sometimes it seems like it was just yesterday, and I can't believe 3.5 years have passed since then.

last edited at Sep 2, 2013 10:49PM

Lucky Star, but it may actually started earlier with Read or Die.

To elaborate:

While I enjoy manga or anime, it wasnt like I did it very often in the past. I would usually read at the book store or watch anime on tv (this was before I was aware that there was manga to read online or one could watch it over the internet). To me anime was limited to tv, VHS, or the movie theater. I usually rented from the video store or bought videos at the local anime shop (hentai mostly, dont ask). I remember buying a dvd from the local shop, it was "Read or Die". I dont know why I bought it but the premise picked my curiosity, wasnt long enough before I noticed or at least suspected that there was something going on between Yomiko Readman and Nancy Makuhari. I think that was when I realized that I was ok with two girls getting together and didnt bother me (got to admit, I have a crush on Yomiko, but that is just because I have a fetish on glasses girls), but I never sought yuri after that, I was too busy with other things to worry about.

Then by around 2007 there was this new stuff called "youtube". I never saw it before nor do I remember how I became aware of it. I can only remember that I clicked a link and it had a clip of Haruhi Suzumiya (first season). I was hooked up. After that I searched on youtube for other shows and I found that it had clips of Minamike, and Strawberry Marshamallow. Also, I learned there was something called a "torrent" and that I could have access to other anime shows that I wasnt aware of. Wasnt long enough before I found clips of Lucky Star on youtube and became and instant fan of the show. I became a fan of KonataxKagami. I dont know why but I was suddenly curious about yuri and anything related to it. Maybe it was because I was familiar of the harem genre and was sick of the usual tropes and cliches of fanservice (this is what happens when you watch too much of the same crap. plus, I was an avid reader/watcher of hentai so I got spoiled by porn, dont ask). Something about yuri was new and different and I liked it. Because of that curiosity it wasnt long before I found stuff like Strawberry Panic, Maria sama ga miteru, and Kannazuki no Miko.

Then during my journey for more yuri I stumble on Ghost of Yuri, then lililicious, and wasnt long before I reached Dynastyscan. To tell you the truth, my memory is not that good so I may have missed some details or forgotten a few, but I am sure that it all started because of Read or Die (YomikoxNancy being my original OTP), and then triggered by KonataxKagami (my second OTP).

last edited at Sep 4, 2013 10:04AM

It began at the beganning...

More seriously, it was probably Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou that got me started, although that was even more subtext-ey than MariMite. But hey, it had (synthetic) girls kissing, and that's a pretty good start. Eventually I started looking for more yuri, and after I quickly used up all MangaFox had to offer (which wasn't really much), I stumbled upon this place, and I've been a devoted follower ever siince.

Somewhere along that path I picked up a love for lesbian romance novels, which are kinda related I suppose, and I've recently gotten the itch to write some Touhou fanfic with a pairing which, surprisingly, doesn't appear on this site. But yuri manga will always be the #1 for me.

My first was anime, yuri or otherwise, was Strawberry Panic. I could hardly watch it without cringing the first time but after I watched a couple more and read some manga I was like, "Oh. So this is normal behavior in Japan." and now I'm used to it.

I'm really not sure what was the first yuri manga or anime for me. Don't remember anything distinct.
But first yuri character I witnessed was definitely Kaori from Azumanga.

i started to love yuri when i accidentally buy a DVD strawberry panic and watch it....i was 14 at that time and still not interested in manga but when i watch some videos in youtube, some yuri manga showed and i found dynasty-scans when i turn 17...and so...i became addicted to yuri that's why some of my relationship ended too....hehe..

Much like EvilDevil, it all almost certainly started with Lucky Star.

My first entry into anime in my teen years was the AMV Hell videos. Man I loved them. I had no idea what the animes were with like 4 exceptions (DBZ, Naruto, One Piece and Akira, which for some reason I was allowed to watch at the age of 12 or something), but I thought it was hilarious and great. Two animes stuck out among the others for me though due to the quality of the parodies that used them: Azumanga Daioh (which I went on Amazon and bought the full volume of manga of afterwards) and Lucky Star.

After torrenting the series through shady means (I may have actually downloaded each episode individually actually) I watched it all, and really liked it at the time. Sometime afterwards, I must have stumbled across a Lucky Star yuri doujin while looking for porn. I think I then searched for every Konata x Kagami I could find, as I loved the pair so much. My fav were definitely the works of Celtrance (you don't wanna know how long I searched online for their Tsukasa x Miyuki doujin that never appeared), and from there I got into yuri as a whole.

Sites to thank for making me like yuri have to include Lililicious and Strawberry Shake Sweet (the best yuri manga, not opinion, fact), Wings of Yuri and their hundreds of Lucky Star and Touhou (I had no fucking clue what Touhou was at the time, so why read them all? No idea.), the long dead Otenba and Shoujo Sect, and a webcomic or two I used to read, stuff like Flipside and Otenba Files ( which I just checked and, hooooly shit they are still both updating! That is insane). Oh. And I guess Dynasty? Maybe?

Oh right, Flipside. Forgot about it.

for me it was watching marimite....it was something that pressed all the right buttons for me...there was no turning back....

I remember it was the end of 2011 when I got into it. I watched this video, a short AMV about Elina x Leina, and it got me somewhat intrigued (also maybe the reason why I like yuri incest so much).... So I did some research on it and I found this VN and thought "They make 'stuff' like this?". Yes it was a bit embarrassing to play it but I really enjoyed it. Finally, I found Yuru Yuri and just was amazed at the innocent, cute shoujo ai in it but I was still not into it as I am now. Afterwards, I found A-Channel, Kanamemo, Saki and the anime that really kicked it off for me, K-On!!!

I started to pair up characters in it and of course the first one was Mio x Ritsu. This pairing really stuck with me and I went online thinking "I could not be the only one that wants these two together, right...?". Indeed, I was not. One of the site I went on even gave recommendations of a doujinshi and fanfiction to read which I did. And I was not disappointed at all. So from there I looked ridiculously more into yuri/shoujo ai and started to watch/read anime/manga/doujinshi/VN that had that genre in it. Stuff like Sasameki Koto, Lucky Start, Noir, Blue Drop, the massive yuri section of Touhou, etc....
I could not watch Strawberry Panic and Kannazuki no Miko for some reason though. It was like torture on drugs for me...

Yup, the history of how I began to obsess over yuri...

This video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPAdPbyY8xo (If only 1:25 ACTUALLY happened...!!! @_@)
This VN: http://vndb.org/v8527
Doujinshi: I think it was Sore wo Ai to Yobu to Shiyou...
Fanfic: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5597535/1/Besotted

last edited at Sep 7, 2013 5:15AM

For me it was Mai HIME, i was... 14? dunno, i've always liked anime and such but i didn't watch it frequently. So i had this friend that introduced me to Mai HIME, then saw that ShizNat blurry kiss scene and it began. I remember i was addicted to yuri fanfictions (in spanish, that's my first language...) wich included Shizuru x Natsuki, Mai x Mikoto and Kim x Shego (from Kim Possible, lol, deviantart had lots of good stuff from that series).
Then i had this long pause (about 2 years, maybe) from seeing anything with feels 'cause broken heart and silly stuff, but about 2 years or so i began to look out for yuri manga in spanish, then i tried in english (which is good for me to practice it, lol) and came to know dynasty.
I see begining with Kannazuki, Strawberry Panic!, Marimite and Girl Friends is common, i have to admit due to various reasons i have never watched the three first works, and i don't think i'm losing much /: dunno, really

I started Strawberry Panic when i was 11 or maybe younger so it wasn't really embarrassing for me but when i re-watch i notice how really my view of point change but strawberry panic is still great.

Interesting forum, I shall join in.

I really new to this compared to many others (the join date on my account is pretty close to when I started). Even tho I knew about yuri being a thing I thought it was all like Strawberry Panic and Marimite which I attempted to watch and did not like (dont crucify me). Also Kannazuki, which I also dropped due to so much nonsensical crap I didn't care for in it (I did see the last episode not long ago, as well as their other versions of such characters from the same creator). Also saw lesbian characters in animes that I liked, but their mere existence was for comedy's sake. None of that got me into it, I just thought it was either way too melodramatic or just fanservice crap. I did watch Yuru Yuri but it was meh yuri-wise, was mostly comedy.

Then I found the little gem that is Kanamemo, the anime is not very good (manga is better)... but Yume and Yuuki, which were portrayed as a serious couple that deeply love each other (instead of fanservice), made it quite enjoyable. So I went into the manga which is being translated by Kawaii scans and in an attempt to find the site again I found this site. And through many comments found mangas that aren't here (e.g. Girls friends and other stuff, stuff in mangafox, etc).

I got obsessed and went through EVERYTHING that had tags on this site that interested me in 2 months... Hey, I had a lot of free time....

On a side note: I attempted to look for yuri in hentai and did a lot of searching and reading lists with short descriptions. Watched some and 99.99% of it is really HORRIBLE stuff, I wish I could forget it ALL! Except for Sono Hanabira, which is sugar-coated like crazy it made my teeth fall instantly, and it introduced me to the VNs.

Just to end my post, I guess the sweetness is what got to me (as well as flirty stuff), mutual love between the characters, specially when they express it in sex scenes (doesn't happen a lot... most look like 1 side is not really enjoying it...). Now I got 2 giant lists full of it. :D

last edited at Feb 21, 2014 2:19AM

If you don't count the Project A-ko movies, which were about girls behaving outrageously--of which acting gay is only a part--my 1st true yuri was probably Love Song by Keiko Nishi.